ined them to concrete examples. I still continue to regret,
as I indeed have never ceased to do, my inability to add a chapter on
Filial Piety, which is considered one of the two wheels of the chariot
of Japanese ethics--Loyalty being the other. My inability is due rather
to my ignorance of the Western sentiment in regard to this particular
virtue, than to ignorance of our own attitude towards it, and I cannot
draw comparisons satisfying to my own mind. I hope one day to enlarge
upon this and other topics at some length. All the subjects that are
touched upon in these pages are capable of further amplification and
discussion; but I do not now see my way clear to make this volume larger
than it is.

This Preface would be incomplete and unjust, if I were to omit the debt
I owe to my wife for her reading of the proof-sheets, for helpful
suggestions, and, above all, for her constant encouragement.

I.N.

Kyoto,
Fifth Month twenty-second, 1905.

CONTENTS

Bushido as an Ethical System

Sources of Bushido

Rectitude or Justice

Courage, the Spirit of Daring and Bearing

Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress

Politeness

Veracity or Truthfulness

Honor

The Duty of Loyalty

Education and Training of a Samurai

Self-Control

The Institutions of Suicide and Redress

The Sword, the Soul of the Samurai

The Training and Position of Woman

The Influence of Bushido

Is Bushido Still Alive?

The Future of Bushido

BUSHIDO AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM.

Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its
emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique
virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living
object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape
or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware
that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society
which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as
those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed
their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of
feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother
institution. It is a pleasure to me to reflect upon this subject in the
language of Burke, who uttered the well-known touching eulogy over the
neglected bier of its European prototype.

It argues a sad defect of information concerning the Far East, when so